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Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Juggling Act

With very little stimulating repartee to share with you today (due entirely to the fact that I have texted so much in the last 72 hours that my hand is literally sore. Carpal tunnel due to texting. It's a real thing, people, and it hurts), I feel compelled to share with you another, eh, side effect? of online dating that I never saw coming: The Juggling Act.

As we've learned together, online dating is like the ocean, it hits you in waves. Sometimes it's low tide and only a few fish wash up on the sand, most of which are flopping around just barely surviving. Other times, it's high tide, with whole waves full of catches just waiting for you to scoop them up. I ended my Match.com career during high tide and my texting hand is paying the price for it.

Right now, I have four men in pretty consistent Text Limbo Land. The last remaining one that you are already relatively familar with is Mr. Italian. He's here...he's nice...he's cute. But, eh. It's dying in the water. We've exhausted almost every topic possible in Text Limbo Land and have quickly settled into the "Hey, what are you doing?" daily opening line. Honestly, when you don't know a person, it's really hard to say anything other than "Nothing, what are you doing?" I've tried dilligently to move into actual phone conversations, but as karma would have it, he ain't havin' it. I will give him the credit he deserves for initiating a potential meet this week, but I felt surely I would never hear from him again after I squashed his idea of meeting at his house. This girl has watched enough Lifetime movies to know that is a recipe for disaster. I can hear my mother in my head now: "Melanie...you're not putting yourself into vulnerable situations with this online dating thing, are you?" to which I quickly respond that I am well aware of the risks and taking every step necessary to protect myself. Getting dolled up and using my date night perfume (don't lie, you have one too) to walk through a Front Door of Potential Doom is not "taking every step necessary to protect myself." Surprisingly, he simply suggested that we reschedule for a weekend that he does not have his daughter. Another obstacle I'm not sure I'm ready to factor into this whole new world of dating, but whatever. Beggers can't be choosers.

I did introduce you to Mr. Nick@Nite and he is still alive and kickin'. Well, he's alive, I don't know about kickin'. We have also run the gamet of all topics of conversation sent in 160 characters or less per statement and hit text messaging bottom. We haven't moved past the "Hope you had a good day" text in three days. I like him, he seems nice enough and definitely has a wider (and more...um, interesting?) array of interests than any of the others out there right now, but he's not engaging. I know, I've said all this before and you all have responded. Yes, I'm happy to move past texting and realize that some people aren't good at it, but this car has stalled out. He's the one stopping us from advancing to that next very eye-opening level of communication. There are only so many times we can talk about my family genealogy and infamous relative. I've got to take that off of there...

You have yet to meet Mr. Morals or Mr. Military, well, honestly because there's not much to say. Surprisingly, according to their profile pictures (and we all know what lessons I've learned from those!) they look eerily similar, but communicate quite oppositely. As you'd expect Mr. Military (named for the presence of fatigues in three of his five profile picture outfit choices) is direct and to the point. But, of course, weird. A Plentyoffish.com pick-up, he has been showering me with compliments from the second our interactions began, but embellished his emails with little more. He did however ask me what I had gotten him for his birthday. After I scoured his profile looking to see if Plentyoffish.com posted birthdays and I'd just missed it (nope, not there), I told him that I wasn't aware, Happy Birthday and I'd buy him a beer whenever we met. Oh, wait, that wasn't a clever way of getting him to commit to something, we had actually mentioned "meeting," but in some far off, distant time. Urgh. After he told me he didn't drink on the first date (I mean, it was a suggestion. Relax. It was one beer. I'm not going to make you do anything you don't want to do, and I'd imagine someone with a military background could quickly subdue any rowdiness on my part.)(Can I date a guy who's not interested in a free beer?!), he said that he'd like me to buy him a tattoo. "Can I pick of what?," I stupidly ask, trying to add some light-hearted flirtation to this overly dry conversation. "I want Japanese artwork," he replies. I have visions of one of those (usually white) people who go into a tattoo parlor mildly intoxicated and request this overly spiritual, artistic Japanese symbol only to later learn it means "I have a pig snout" or something else highly comical to anyone of Japanese heritage.

Then we have sweet Mr. Morals. He openly proclaims his fierce allegiance to his mother (I'm not making fun, I promise, this is a major selling point if he hasn't crossed the same line of allegiance that say, Norman Bates did) and how much he loves his nieces and nephews, another nice quality for someone like me with a monumentally loud biological clock. I'll give him his credit too, he has been able to keep me relatively entertained even with the mundane day-to-day topics. But, no mention of a meeting...yet.

What's wrong with all this, you ask? I'll be happy to enlighten you. My brain is not big enough to keep track of what I've said to whom. I constantly feel as though I'm repeating myself because the only mental image I have of any of these gentlemen are their tiny thumbnail profile pictures or the "unknown" icon on my phone. None of them have really outshined the other (besides the aforementioned "skills" of Mr. Italian, which I will further address tomorrow). If you had asked Melanie From a Year Ago if she would have ever thought she'd be complaining about having TOO many men vying for her attention, she would laughed until she was blue in the face, caught her breath and started laughing again. I know this is a relatively easy problem to have, but how do I solve it? Inevitably someone is going to fall through the cracks, but is it fair for someone to fall victim to my overzealous "winking" on Match.com? I'm not sure how much longer I can maintain this juggling act and with my track record, instead of dropping one ball and keep on truckin', I'm sure to drop them all in one fell swoop. Luckily, Mr. Mardi Gras saw a way out of this debacle and recently told me that his silence was due to a recent transfer to Savannah. Another party town where his loud shirts will fit in perfectly. Good luck, Mr. Mardi Gras, bon voyage to you and your cruise wear.

Come back tomorrow...I'm thinking the dropping might not be a bad idea.